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Israeli plan to build a new Jerusalem gate condemned by Palestinian government

Israeli plan to build a new Jerusalem gate condemned by Palestinian government

The Palestinian Authority has denounced a potentially explosive Israeli plan to build a gate in the Ottoman walls of Jerusalem’s storied Old City as a provocative move that could undermine peace talks.

Western Wall plaza and the Al-Aqsa mosque compound (background) in Jerusalem’s old city Photo: AFP Jewish municipal officials last week unveiled a proposal to breach the Old City’s walls for the first time in 112 years, a project that threatens to jeopardise the delicate status quo in one of the world’s most sensitive and disputed religious sites.

The row comes when the negotiations, launched in Washington last month, are already in deep crisis following the expiry of an Israeli moratorium on Jewish settlement construction in the occupied West Bank.

Having already threatened to abandon the talks, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, raised the stakes further over the weekend by calling on the United States to support the creation of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank. Although an Arab League decision to give the United States another month to resolve the settlement dispute raised hopes that the talks could still be salvaged, Mr Abbas’s appeal suggests that he is already looking beyond negotiations.

Palestinian officials have said they could seek a UN Security Council resolution supporting independence next year if peace talks fail, a move that would complicate the prospect of there ever being a negotiated peace deal with Israel.

If the ever-fraught issue of Jewish settlements is behind the present impasse, the prospect of architectural changes in the Old City could prove even more incendiary.

For Israeli officials, the matter is merely one of urban planning. They want to build a gate leading to a new underground car park to improve access to the Wailing Wall, the most revered surviving structure in Judaism, and to an equally contentious multi-purpose centre that is to be built in front of it.

But for Palestinians, the proposal represents a further assault on their claims to the Old City, home to some of the holiest sites in Islam, and with it the real possibility of a violent backlash from their supporters.

Since they were built by Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman sultan, 472 years ago, the walls of the Old City have only been breached four times – most recently in 1898 to create access for a large entourage led by Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Since Israel’s capture of the Old City and surrounding areas of East Jerusalem in 1967, there has been good reason to retain this policy of architectural diffidence.

In 1996, 80 people were killed in three days of Palestinian riots after Israel began construction on a tunnel close to the Temple Mount, the site of the two Jewish temples of antiquity which are now home to the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest in Islam. Jews regard the mount as their holiest religious site and mourning the temple’s most recent destruction, by the Romans in AD70, is a central tenet of their faith.

Further underground construction is likely, however, to renew a long-standing belief by some Palestinians that Israel is intent on tearing down the mosques to build the Third Temple, a suspicion that even many critics of Israel say is unfounded.

But although the Wailing Wall, which is part of the surviving western perimeter of the Temple, is likely to remain under Jewish sovereignty under any peace deal, the Palestinian cabinet said on Sunday that building there now would compromise one of the most delicate elements of the negotiations.

It gave warning that the proposal would have “negative” consequences for the negotiations.

“This is not only illegal under international law, it is provocative and will increase tensions,” said Ghassan Khatib, a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority. “It is pre-empting the negotiations by changing the situation on the ground in a way that is prejudicial to a two state solution.”

There are doubts that the construction – which could also jeopardise the Old City’s status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site – will even go ahead. But even though plans are at a very preliminary stage, they still have the potential to cause significant anger, whether or not they come to fruition.

“Perceived threats are often as volatile as real threats,” said Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli activist who campaigns for an equitable solution to the issue of Jerusalem.

“You have the tectonic plates of civilisation meeting in this one place so that even the most innocent plans can cause serious repercussions.”

In a separate development that could further raise tensions, the Israeli cabinet on Sunday approved a bill that would force all Palestinians wishing to become citizens of Israel to swear an oath to the country as a “Jewish state”.

The proposed legislation has been widely condemned by leaders of Israel’s Arab minority as racist.